Thursday, September 20, 2007

"Here's my Zestimate: Zillow will use some of the $30 million it just raised to push into the home improvement and décor market.

The nearly 2-year-old online real-estate site was already the best funded Seattle Web startup in the cycle, with $57 million raised.

Today, it's announcing a third and probably final round of financing, this time led by Legg Mason Capital Management in Baltimore. Bill Miller, Legg Mason's chief investment officer, said in a news release: "We believe Zillow is well on its way toward becoming a market-leader in a huge, and untapped online category of online tools and information for homeowners."

The word "homeowners" is interesting.

Zillow's initial focus was homebuyers and sellers. It made its splash with Zestimates, a tool for estimating the value of property. Zillow has also been adding tools for home sellers, enabling people to post "make me move" prices and giving agents and brokers more tools to edit listings and advertise on the site.